As noted in this previous teknovation.biz article, one of the participants in the latest cohort was Mixtroz, the Nashville area start-up co-founded by Kerry Schrader and Ashlee Ammons. We caught-up with the latter via email to learn about their experience with the Velocity programming and their thoughts on their upcoming pitch to Steve Case, Founder of AOL who is bringing his “Rise of the Rest Road Tour” to Birmingham on May 9.

“We cannot say enough about the positive experience that we’ve had at Velocity and within the Birmingham community,” Ammons said. “Birmingham has a hands-on approach with start-ups, and the connectivity that Innovation Depot has to the community, corporate partners, investors and potential clients is unmatched for us since we started our entrepreneurial journey.”

She explained that she and her co-founder, who is also her mother, knew they had a good idea which had been validated in Nashville by acquiring clients like HCA, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, and Deloitte, but they needed to identify a scalable and repeatable business process for Mixtroz.

“I am happy to confirm that we have,” Ammons said. “The 13 weeks ran very much like an executive MBA, and we learned tools not for the future but to move our business forward today. Through testing we know that Mixtroz is a product with virality, and the best way to grow is to get our product into the hands of potential customers who, once they interact, become not only fans of Mixtroz but ambassadors themselves.

She says the path forward is targeted growth beginning in key southeastern conferencing markets and migrating Mixtroz’s services to a SaaS platform.

As far as the pitch to Case and his team of investors that could bring a $100,000 prize, Ammons says that “our company today is in the best possible place . . . that would not be so without all of the events aligning as they have up to this point. It is an honor to be chosen as a representative of the most promising seed stage companies outside of the coasts, and we plan to bring our ‘A Game’ and enjoy every moment of this extraordinary experience.

The Birmingham stop on the “Rise of the Rest Road Tour” occurs after Memphis (May 8) and before Chattanooga (May 10).